Trade unionism and industrial restructuring in India and Pakistan

Abstract

Inheriting an identical body of colonial labor legislation, India's electoral competitive political party regimes and Pakistan's military-bureaucratic regimes devised markedly different roles for organized labor. Democratic political regimes in India politicized and institutionalized organized labor, whereas authoritarian political regimes in Pakistan fragmented and marginalized organized labor. Both labor movements are struggling against the labor rationalization associated with the International Monetary Fund structural adjustment programs currently being implemented by both governments. The politically influential Indian trade union organizations have helped to slow the process of economic liberalization in a manner not possible in Pakistan. However, the costs of labor's political incorporation may be high, as indicated by the lack of support from official Indian trade union organizations for workers' management schemes.The triumph of capitalism is most obviously evidenced by the collapse of the professedly communist governments of Eastern Europe. But the most momentous consequence of capitalism's triumph is in the developing world. Governments that once struggled to pursue independent paths to social and economic development have devalued their currencies, opened their economies to the products, services, investment, advertising, and marketing of the advanced capitalist world, removed monopoly regulations on industry, denationalized banking and financial sectors, and disciplined their labor forces. These requirements for entry into the modern capitalist world—aimed at making the economies of developing countries more inviting to international capital—are the central components of structural adjustment programs guided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Many lower-income developing countries in Asia have adopted these programs, fundamentally altering the relationship between state and society.

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